Southeast Asia Map Laos

[Akinlolu Bellotti]

Laose] officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR),[f] is the only landlocked country and one of the two Marxist-Leninist states in Southeast Asia[g]. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest.[12] Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.

Present-day Laos traces its historic and cultural identity to Lan Xang, which existed from the 13th century to the 18th century as one of the largest kingdoms in Southeast Asia.[13] Because of its central geographical location in Southeast Asia, the kingdom became a hub for overland trade and became wealthy economically and culturally.[13] After a period of internal conflict, Lan Xang broke into three separate kingdoms: Luang Phrabang, Vientiane and Champasak. In 1893, the three kingdoms came under a French protectorate and were united to form what is now known as Laos.

Laos was occupied by Japan during World War II and briefly regained independence in 1945 as a Japanese puppet state but was re-colonised by France until it won autonomy in 1949. It regained independence in 1953 as the Kingdom of Laos, with a constitutional monarchy under Sisavang Vong. A civil war began in 1959, which saw the communist Pathet Lao, supported by North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, fight against the Royal Lao Armed Forces, supported by the United States. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party came to power, ending the civil war and the monarchy. Laos was then dependent on military and economic aid from the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.

The politically and culturally dominant Lao people make up 53.2% of the population, mostly in the lowlands. Mon-Khmer groups, the Hmong, and other indigenous hill tribes live in the foothills and mountains. Laos's strategies for development are based on generating electricity from rivers and selling the power to its neighbours, namely Thailand, China and Vietnam, as well as its initiative to become a "land-linked" nation, as evidenced by the construction of four new railways connecting Laos and neighbours.[16][17] Laos has been referred to as one of Southeast Asia and Pacific's fastest growing economies by the World Bank with annual GDP growth averaging 7.4% since 2009,[18][19] despite being classified as a least developed country by the United Nations.

An ancient human skull was recovered in 2009 from the Tam Pa Ling Cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos; the skull is at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia.[26] Stone artifacts including Hoabinhian types have been found at sites dating to the Late Pleistocene in northern Laos.[27] Archaeological evidence suggests an agriculturist society developed during the 4th millennium BC.[28] Burial jars and other kinds of sepulchers suggest a complex society in which bronze objects appeared around 1500 BC, and iron tools were known from 700 BC. The proto-historic period is characterised by contact with Chinese and Indian civilisations. According to linguistic and other historical evidence, Tai-speaking tribes migrated southwestward to the modern territories of Laos and Thailand from Guangxi sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries.[29]

In 1520, Photisarath came to the throne and moved the capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane to avoid a Burmese invasion. Setthathirath became king in 1548, after his father was killed, and ordered the construction of what became the symbol of Laos, That Luang. Settathirath disappeared in the mountains on his way back from a military expedition into Cambodia, and Lan Xang fell into more than seventy years of instability, involving both Burmese invasion and civil war.[34]

In 1637, when Sourigna Vongsa ascended the throne, Lan Xang further expanded its frontiers. His reign is often regarded as Laos's golden age. When he died without an heir, the kingdom split into three principalities. Between 1763 and 1769, Burmese armies overran northern Laos and annexed Luang Prabang, while Champasak eventually came under Siamese suzerainty.[35]

Chao Anouvong was installed as a vassal king of Vientiane by the Siamese. He encouraged a renaissance of Lao fine arts and literature and improved relations with Luang Phrabang. Under Vietnamese pressure, he rebelled against the Siamese in 1826. The rebellion failed, and Vientiane was ransacked.[36] Anouvong was taken to Bangkok as a prisoner, where he died.[37]

In a time period where the acquisition of humans was a priority over the ownership of land, the warfare of pre-modern Southeast Asia revolved around the seizing of people and resources from its enemies. A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".[38]

In the late 19th century, Luang Prabang was ransacked by the Chinese Black Flag Army.[39] France rescued King Oun Kham and added Luang Phrabang to the protectorate of French Indochina. Shortly after, the Kingdom of Champasak and the territory of Vientiane were added to the protectorate. King Sisavangvong of Luang Phrabang became ruler of a unified Laos, and Vientiane once again became the capital.[40] Laos never held any importance for France[41] other than as a buffer state between Thailand and the more economically important Annam and Tonkin.

Laos produced tin, rubber, and coffee, but never accounted for more than one percent of French Indochina's exports. By 1940, around 600 French citizens lived in Laos.[42] Under French rule, the Vietnamese were encouraged to migrate to Laos, which was seen by the French colonists as a rational solution to a labour shortage within the confines of an Indochina-wide colonial space.[43] By 1943, the Vietnamese population stood at nearly 40,000, forming the majority in the largest cities of Laos and enjoying the right to elect its own leaders.[44] As a result, 53% of the population of Vientiane, 85% of Thakhek, and 62% of Pakse were Vietnamese, with only the exception of Luang Prabang where the population was predominantly Lao.[44] As late as 1945, the French drew up an ambitious plan to move a massive number of Vietnamese to three key areas, i.e., the Vientiane Plain, Savannakhet region, and the Bolaven Plateau, which was only derailed by the Japanese invasion of Indochina.[44] Otherwise, according to Martin Stuart-Fox, the Lao might well have lost control over their own country.[44]

During World War II in Laos, Vichy France, Thailand, Imperial Japan and Free France occupied Laos.[45] On 9 March 1945, a nationalist group declared Laos once more independent, with Luang Prabang as its capital, but on 7 April 1945 two battalions of Japanese troops occupied the city.[46] The Japanese attempted to force Sisavang Vong (the king of Luang Phrabang) to declare Laotian independence, but on 8 April he instead simply declared an end to Laos's status as a French protectorate. The king then secretly sent Prince Kindavong to represent Laos to the Allied forces and Prince Sisavang as representative to the Japanese.[46] When Japan surrendered, some Lao nationalists (including Prince Phetsarath) declared Laotian independence, but by early 1946, French troops had reoccupied the country and conferred limited autonomy on Laos.[47]

During the First Indochina War, the Indochinese Communist Party formed the Pathet Lao independence organisation. The Pathet Lao began a war against the French colonial forces with the aid of the Vietnamese independence organisation, the Viet Minh. In 1950, the French were forced to give Laos semi-autonomy as an "associated state" within the French Union. France remained in de facto control until 22 October 1953, when Laos gained full independence as a constitutional monarchy.[48][47]

The First Indochina War took place across French Indochina and eventually led to French defeat and the signing of a peace accord for Laos at the Geneva Conference of 1954. In 1960, amidst a series of rebellions in the Kingdom of Laos, fighting broke out between the Royal Lao Army (RLA) and the communist North Vietnamese and Soviet Union-backed Pathet Lao guerillas. A second Provisional Government of National Unity formed by Prince Souvanna Phouma in 1962 was unsuccessful, and the situation steadily deteriorated into large scale civil war between the Royal Laotian government and the Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao were backed militarily by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong.[48][47]

Laos was a key part of the Vietnam War since parts of Laos were invaded and occupied by North Vietnam since 1958 for use as a supply route for its war against South Vietnam. In response, the United States initiated a bombing campaign against the PAVN positions, supported regular and irregular anti-communist forces in Laos, and supported incursions into Laos by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.[48][47]

In 1968, the PAVN launched a multi-division attack to help the Pathet Lao fight the RLA. The attack resulted in the RLA largely demobilising, leaving the conflict to irregular ethnic Hmong forces of the "Secret Army" backed by the United States and Thailand, and led by General Vang Pao.[citation needed]

Massive aerial bombardments against the PAVN/Pathet Lao forces were carried out by the United States to prevent the collapse of the Kingdom of Laos central government, and to deny the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to attack US forces in South Vietnam.[48] Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the US dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population; The New York Times notes this was "nearly a ton for every person in Laos".[49]

Some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swaths of land impossible to cultivate. Currently unexploded ordnance (UXO), including cluster munitions and mines, kill or maim approximately 50 Laotians every year.[50] Due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the weapons and was host to the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010.[51]

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